See how Fiverr uses Zendesk Support to serve its thriving marketplace

Fiverr is the world’s largest marketplace for services starting at as little as $5. The site lists close to a million services (called Gigs) from the very quirky to the business essentials. Becoming a seller takes approximately two minutes and ordering a service is even faster.

Fiverr is redefining the way people work online, says Micha Kaufman, Fiverr’s CEO. It allows anyone to turn their skills, talents, and resources into income in a matter of minutes. Think of it as the eBay for the services economy.

Since its launch in 2010, Fiverr has grown rapidly, serving millions of customers from over 200 countries worldwide. The site is ranked one of the Internet’s top 200 websites and one of the 100 most popular websites in the US. Fiverr has been featured in TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, Wired Magazine, Forbes, CNN, MSNBC, USA Today, and more.

Fiverr is a social services network, explained Reuben Furmanski, Head of Customer Support. As a P2P marketplace, it’s all about the liquidity of demand and supply—putting people from all around the world in one place to exchange skills with necessities. “Making sure that everything is streamlined and everyone is happy is what my team is here for,” said Furmanski. “The communication tool that we’ve chosen is Zendesk Support.”

Furmanski, who set up the customer support department at Fiverr back in 2010, turned to Support at a time of rapid company growth.

As our website became more popular, the number of customer inquiries grew. We needed to manage the increased volume and streamline our responses while maintaining the personal touch, he said. “Our co-founders, Micha Kaufman and Shai Wininger, came across Zendesk Support and we implemented it very quickly across the business.”

Fiverr currently uses a number of Support’s features including tagging, macros, the API, intra-company communications, customer forum and self-service options.

“Zendesk Support is robust and easy to use—anyone could learn how to use it,” said Furmanski.

In fact, Support plays a double role at Fiverr, as it is also used for internal team support.

“Our customer support team uses Support to deal with a range of requests, from helping a seller to check his or her account balance to advising a buyer how to complete an order,” Furmanski explained. “In addition, our founders, editors, and developers use Support to exchange information among teams.”

Support helped Fiverr set up crucial processes that allow the company to provide a personal touch when it comes to customer service and the user experience.

“Zendesk Support has enabled us to develop work protocols and become more methodical,” he explained. “However, while we measure response times, it isn’t our aim to close a ticket as quickly as possible. We want to make sure we handle buyer or seller queries properly, and resolve the query to the customer’s satisfaction. It’s all about creating a wonderful user experience for anyone in the Fiverr community through customized and effective communication.”

Fiverr encourages its customers to provide feedback and they, in turn, appreciate Fiverr’s speedy responses—within minutes, from a real person. “We’ve had positive feedback from customers who have gone through our support channels,” Furmanski said.

One Fiverr seller commented on the company’s blog: “It’s really nice to know they’re real people and are concerned about how we’re doing.”

Zendesk Support will continue to play a key role at Fiverr as the company moves forward.

“I attended a Zendesk training session recently and it was very useful to see what other companies were doing with the software,” Furmanski added. “It’s good to know that Zendesk is always enhancing their products, as that means we can expand the support we give to our buyers and sellers over time.”

“Zendesk Support is robust and easy to use—anyone can learn how to use it.”